An anti-porn group announced Wednesday that it had persuaded two major retailers to place Cosmopolitan magazine behind cover-blocking "blinders," the same kind used on adult magazines like Playboy.

Rite Aid and Delhaize America have agreed to the wrapped covers, Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, told Women&rsquo;s World Daily. Rite Aid confirmed the decision to HuffPost. Delhaize, which owns Food Lion and Hannaford, has not returned a request for comment.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation&nbsp;changed its name from Morality in Media this year. The new name lends itself to empathy: Who wouldn&rsquo;t want to fight sexual exploitation? Nobody, until perhaps finding out that to the center, "exploitation" really means "any sexual behavior it doesn't like."&nbsp;

What are the group's qualms about Cosmo?

"Cosmo is actually just another porn magazine glamorizing and legitimizing a dangerous lifestyle -- pushing readers to try violent, group or anal sex," Hawkins told WWD.

A National Center on Sexual Exploitation&nbsp;spokeswoman told HuffPost that the group has "not called for removal or a boycott of Cosmopolitan," just that it be covered from public view and not sold to minors. Still, the group, which notes that it opposes&nbsp;all forms of pornography,&nbsp;calls the magazine "pornographic."

Putting Cosmo behind blinders sends the message that sex and female sexuality are shameful. But then that is the implicit message behind many statements from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Its website's "Frequently Asked Questions" section is filled with scare-tactic misinformation like the scientifically unsupported&nbsp;claim that watching porn featuring adults leads users to seek out child porn. The FAQ section also essentially states that adult film actors can never truly consent to the work, taking the position that all pornography is a form of exploitation, stating that "one may consent and still be sexually exploited, as in the case of a porn model."

Aside from the fact that it&rsquo;s insulting to say that adult human beings can&rsquo;t tell whether they are being exploited, conflating victims of abuse and sex trafficking with voluntary sex workers&nbsp;obscures the data and harms people in both groups. Hiding the cover of Cosmo also does nothing to help real victims.

Should little kids be reading how-tos on oral sex? No, but we also don&rsquo;t know many 8-year-olds who are going to the store and buying Cosmo on their own.

If parents fear the magazine will warp young minds, they can choose not to bring it into their homes. But it would&nbsp;do a lot more good if they talked&nbsp;to their children about healthy sexual behavior and supported comprehensive sexual education in schools.

The controversial substance abuse prevention group&nbsp;D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) appeared to have made a surprisingly progressive change in its ideology Monday when it published a letter to the editor endorsing marijuana legalization.

McDerment argued in the letter that laws criminalizing marijuana make the substance more accessible to minors.

&ldquo;I know from enforcing senseless marijuana laws that children only are being put in more danger when marijuana is kept illegal,&rdquo; said McDerment, who wrote in response to a previous letter to the editor that argued legalized marijuana would harm kids.

&ldquo;The goal of prohibiting marijuana was to eradicate its use, but in reality, the drug has become infinitely harder for law enforcement to control,"&nbsp;he continued in the letter.

While marijuana consumption can certainly be harmful to children, McDerment wrote, &ldquo;anyone who suggests we outlaw everything dangerous to children would also have to ban stairs, Tylenol, bleach, forks and outlet socks and definitely alcohol&hellip; The answer isn&rsquo;t prohibition and incarceration; the answer is regulation and education.&rdquo;

Ron Brogan, D.A.R.E. regional director, confirmed to HuffPost on Friday that "a service we use put this post up in error" and "we have not changed our stance that we are opposed to marijuana legalization."

]]>Teen Perfectly Illustrates The Problem With NBC's Sam Dubose Tweet55ba9615e4b0d4f33a0227f82015-07-30T17:24:37-04:002015-07-31T12:59:01-04:00Hilary Hansonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/A University of California at Berkeley student called out NBC News on Twitter on Wednesday for its poor choice of photos in a tweet about Sam DuBose, an unarmed black man fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop.

NBC&rsquo;s headline announced that the officer, Ray Tensing, had been indicted for murder in Dubose&rsquo;s death. However, the network&rsquo;s photo choice&nbsp;-- a smiling shot of Tensing in uniform and an old mug shot of Dubose from a charge totally unrelated to his death -- implied that Dubose was more of a &ldquo;criminal&rdquo; than Tensing.

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&ldquo;Hey @NBCNews, I went ahead and fixed this one for you. Do Better,&rdquo; Rigel Robinson tweeted, along with a split image of a regular photo of Dubose alongside Tensing&rsquo;s mugshot.

&ldquo;How we tell these narratives is important,&rdquo; Robinson, 19, told The Huffington Post. &ldquo;Digging up an old mugshot for the black man that got shot instead of the officer that was just indicted for killing him does a disservice to the memory of Mr. Dubose, it does a disservice to journalism, and frankly, it's just racist.&rdquo;

Robinson was far from the only person to criticize NBC&rsquo;s photo choice, but his visually striking commentary garnered more than 10,000 retweets.

Bill O&rsquo;Reilly compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the gestapo Wednesday night, shortly before proclaiming he is the reporter who has done the most to &ldquo;shed light&rdquo; on violence against young black men.&nbsp;

During a segment on "The O'Reilly Factor,"&nbsp;O&rsquo;Reilly and Fox News commentator Andrea Tantaros discussed a Black Lives Matter conference in Ohio where attendees prevented a reporter from filming.

"Their message means nothing if they do these gestapo tactics," O&rsquo;Reilly said. "They lose all credibility. The group is never going to be taken seriously."

Less than a minute later, O&rsquo;Reilly asked Fox News correspondent Jehmu Greene, "The reporter in this country who has shed the most light on young black men being killed is who?" When Greene said she didn&rsquo;t know, O&rsquo;Reilly informed her, "That would be me."

O'Reilly's criticisms of Black Lives Matter are notably inconsistent. His "gestapo" comment came just one day after he criticized the movement&nbsp;for being "anarchistic"&nbsp;-- a trait not exactly typically linked&nbsp;to Nazi-like behavior.

Sex workers and their advocates say major credit card companies&rsquo; recent decision to cut ties with Backpage.com -- ostensibly to curb sex trafficking -- will make the work more perilous for many escorts.

American Express announced in April it would no longer allow its cards to make payments on the classified ad site, and Visa and MasterCard followed suit&nbsp;in June. They did so after receiving letters from Illinois&rsquo; Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who said Backpage's popular &ldquo;adult&rdquo; ad section facilitated sex trafficking.

Dart said in a statement at the time that Backpage &ldquo;lowered the barrier to entry&rdquo; for sex traffickers. &ldquo;Raising that barrier,&rdquo; he said, would lead to fewer traffickers and fewer victims.&nbsp;

People who work in the sex industry are condemning the moves as misguided and dangerous. Backpage last month&nbsp;filed a lawsuit against Dart&rsquo;s office, contending that his requests to credit card companies violate the free speech rights of Backpage and its users.&nbsp;A&nbsp;judge on Friday ordered Dart to cease campaigning against Backpage's revenue sources, Consumerist reported.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the more marginalized and poorer workers who are hit hardest by this,&rdquo; said Caty Simon, an escort and co-editor of Tits and Sass, a blog by and for sex workers.

&ldquo;Backpage is one of the cheapest options for sex workers to work independently while also having access to a large pool of clients,&rdquo; she told HuffPost.

Without that option, Simon said, sex workers who lack the resources to advertise on more expensive websites -- or learn to use alternative payments like bitcoin -- may have to work on the streets, which carries a higher risk of violence or arrest. Backpage is temporarily allowing ads in its &ldquo;adult&rdquo; section to be posted for free. &nbsp;

&nbsp;The new credit card policies, which also affect Backpage users in countries like the U.K. and Australia, where selling sex is legal, will likely increase some escorts&rsquo; dependency on the very people it&rsquo;s meant to protect them from, according to Maggie McNeill, who's worked on and off as an escort since 1997 and writes about the industry on her blog "The Honest Courtesan."

Without easy and affordable access to a client base, &ldquo;what are you going to do?&rdquo; McNeill asked. &ldquo;Hitting the streets is what you&rsquo;ve got to do. Or you might run into some guy who says, &lsquo;I can get you work if you give me a cut.&rsquo;&rdquo;

&ldquo;Backpage is one of the easiest ways for low-income sex workers to avoid being exploited by third parties,&rdquo; Simon said.

Sex worker advocacy groups had similar concerns.

&ldquo;This policy effectively disenfranchises thousands of sex workers across the country who do not have access to any other means of online advertising,&rdquo; Lindsay Roth, board chair of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, told&nbsp;nonprofit group Project Safe Philly.

The Sex Workers Project issued a statement&nbsp;earlier this month criticizing credit card companies for the decision:

&ldquo;Access to online advertising can be a basic safety mechanism for many people in the sex industry,&rdquo; said Crystal DeBoise, Director of the Sex Workers Project. &ldquo;The ability to advertise online gives sex workers the ability to screen clients, to negotiate for services and condoms use, and to have more control over the interactions and environment in a sex work exchange. These are all safety strategies people in the sex trade need to survive. Visa and MasterCard trying to end this avenue will only cause harm to those in the sex trade, and will not stop trafficking.&rdquo;

The Sex Workers Project said the moves make&nbsp;it harder for law enforcement&nbsp;to prosecute sex traffickers, because credit card information collected by Backpage had in the past been used as evidence.

&ldquo;Any pimp or trafficker using bitcoin or [online payment service] paysafe is impossible to trace,&rdquo;&nbsp;a U.K.-based sensual masseuse who wished to be identified only as &ldquo;Pauline&rdquo; told HuffPost.

If cutting off Backpage's access to credit cards isn&rsquo;t the answer to curbing exploitation, what is? Simon and McNeill said decriminalization of sex work is the most important step.

&ldquo;Criminalization, marginalization, isolation and poverty -- all things sex workers suffer from under current policy -- are all factors that make us more vulnerable to exploitation,&rdquo; said Simon. &ldquo;Decriminalizing sex work would not only help voluntary sex workers, it would also help those of us who are coerced.&rdquo;

A woman in an abusive situation, Simon said, may be afraid to leave for fear of being &ldquo;outed&rdquo; as a sex worker. &ldquo;Criminalizing sex work is what makes trafficking survivors unable to seek support,&rdquo; she said.

Criminalization and stigma also make it harder for websites to root out trafficking. Pauline said her advertising site of choice screens sex workers by asking them to provide ID and contacting them to determine whether they can hold a conversation in English.

McNeill noted that a screening process is a major barrier to entry for women in the U.S., who fear they will be recorded as sex workers in a database that can later be used against them.

&ldquo;Independent sexual behavior of humans is not an appropriate subject for criminal law,&rdquo; she said, referring to consensual acts. Laws against rape, assault and abduction, she said, should stand -- but not those outlawing the acts of selling or paying for sex.

McNeill added that minors who have run away from abusive homes -- one of the biggest demographics of minors who wind up selling sex -- would benefit greatly from widespread 24-hour &ldquo;drop-in&rdquo; shelters, where any young person could receive a meal, shelter and a bed &ldquo;with no questions asked.&rdquo; Much of the money spent on police and prisons, she said, would be far better spent on that.

She also said many underaged people who sold sex might not do so if minor emancipation were made easier&nbsp;for older teens. In that case, minors who otherwise might feel like they had no options other than selling sex could more easily obtain other jobs without parental permission.

Liz McDougall, general counsel for Backpage.com, told HuffPost, "Speaking for myself, I believe humanity and civil rights should be priorities in society's treatment of all persons."

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The Cook County Sheriff&rsquo;s Department was unable to comment due to pending litigation from Backpage.&nbsp;

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Visa, MasterCard and American Express did not immediately return a request for comment.

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This story has been updated to include comment from Liz McDougall.

]]>County Removes Confederate Flag, Replaces It With Another Confederate Flag55b93172e4b0224d883509672015-07-29T16:02:58-04:002015-07-31T12:59:01-04:00Hilary Hansonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/In the wake of the reignited controversy over the Confederate battle flag, Walton County, Florida, voted Tuesday to remove the flag from the county courthouse grounds -- only to replace it with a different Confederate flag.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s perplexing how this is perceived as any compromise,&rdquo; Daniel Uhlfelder, a key force in the local movement to have the flag taken down, told The Huffington Post.

The battle flag used by the Army of Northern Virginia has flown on the lawn of the Walton County Courthouse in DeFuniak Springs since 1964 -- the year President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, according to the Tampa Bay Times.&nbsp;The flag was positioned next to a Civil War monument.&nbsp;County commissioners voted 4-0 to replace that flag with the traditional &ldquo;stars and bars&rdquo; that was the first official flag of the Confederate States of America.

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The county wanted to put up a version of that flag with 13 stars, but one wasn't immediately available, County Public Information Officer&nbsp;Louis Svehl told HuffPost. On Wednesday, they put up a version with seven stars as a temporary stand-in.

"The soil of Walton County has been enriched with the blood and sweat of the people who came before every one of us, some who fought and died in the war between the states," Commissioner Sara Comander said&nbsp;prior to the vote, the Tampa Bay Times reported. "I want to honor all of those who came before us, but I also want to be cognizant of those that the present flag seems to offend."

&ldquo;They replaced a symbol of segregation with a symbol of slavery and secession,&rdquo; Uhlfelder said.&nbsp;

"Diet Coke and Coke are still the same thing: a Coke product," his wife and fellow activist, Michelle Uhlfelder, said in an email. "The Confederate flag and the Confederate battle flag on Walton County's Courthouse lawn endorse the same statement: this County does not believe in equal rights for all within the halls of justice."

]]>Puppy's Reunion With Mother Will Make You Want To Hug Your Mom55b8d6a5e4b0a13f9d1addea2015-07-29T09:35:33-04:002015-07-29T14:59:01-04:00Hilary Hansonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/There&rsquo;s nothing cuter than a canine family reunion.

Harper, a 5-month-old puppy, hadn&rsquo;t seen her mom since she was adopted at 11 weeks old, according to Rumble Viral&nbsp;user JarretR, who posted this video last week. Although they&rsquo;ve spent months apart, the two dogs were acting like old pals within seconds&nbsp;of seeing each other again.&nbsp;

While a dog&rsquo;s memory works differently from a human&rsquo;s, animal behaviorist Steven Lindsay has previously told The Nest&nbsp;he believes mother dogs have the ability to remember their puppies long term. He said when a female dog gives birth, the physiological reaction sets off her &ldquo;protective instinct,&rdquo; which becomes stronger the longer she is with the puppies. The longer the puppies are with her after their birth, the better the chances are that she&rsquo;ll be able to recognize her pups in the future.

In general, dogs are more likely to recognize another dog -- or human -- when they have a strong emotional attachment to them, Stanley Coren, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and author of The Wisdom of Dogs,&nbsp;told Pacific Standard last year.

&ldquo;The emotional life of a dog -- the entire mental life of the dog -- is very close to a human two- or three-year-old,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A two- or three-year-old will have love and joy and fear and anger and surprise, but they tend not to have the higher social emotions like guilt ... pride, shame, that sort of thing.&rdquo;

Coren did note it&rsquo;s more difficult for an adult dog to remember relationships from before the age of 6 months.

]]>Employee Sent Home After Shorts From Her Own Store Deemed 'Too Revealing,' She Says55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b22015-07-28T17:34:58-04:002015-07-30T11:59:01-04:00Hilary Hansonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/

A former JCPenney employee has taken to Twitter to illustrate just how hypocritical dress codes for women can be.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Boss sent me home for wearing 'too revealing' shorts that I bought from the store I work at in the career section,&rdquo; Sylva Stoel tweeted on Friday. She included a photo of herself in a pair of red shorts that hit at about mid-thigh.&nbsp;

Boss sent me home for wearing &quot;too revealing&quot; shorts that I bought from the store I work at in the career section. pic.twitter.com/vrAnN4beC2

&ldquo;I told [my manager] that I thought it was unfair to send me home due to the fact that I had purchased the shorts from JC Penney's own career section, but he insisted that I go home and change anyways.&rdquo; Stoel, 17, told The Huffington Post in an email.

Stoel said she had only worked at the store for two weeks before the incident. She told Mic&nbsp;that during her job orientation, her manager had never mentioned shorts, but had said denim, T-shirts and spaghetti straps were prohibited, and skirts could not be &ldquo;too short.&rdquo;

Stoel said she had seen co-workers show up in denim and men&rsquo;s undershirts, but they weren't sent home.

She said she quit the job, and is glad her experience is starting conversations about how women are treated in the workplace.

&ldquo;Unfair dress codes affect millions of women, and it&rsquo;s time to speak out against them,&rdquo; she said.

A JCPenney spokesperson said the company does not comment on personnel matters.&nbsp;HuffPost was unable to reach a representative at the store where Stoel worked.

An employee of New York's Clinton Correctional Facility has pleaded guilty to assisting in the escape of two convicted killers.

Joyce Mitchell, who worked as a tailor shop instructor at the facility, said she smuggled hacksaw blades inside frozen hamburger meat to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat prior to their June 6 escape,&nbsp;according to the Associated Press.

After leaving the northern New York state facility, the pair of convicts were on the run until Matt was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent near Canada on June 26. Sweat was shot and captured alive two days later.&nbsp;

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Officials said Mitchell, 51, became close to Sweat and Matt while she assisted them, smuggling blades and assorted tools to help them break out of the facility. An anonymous law enforcement source told CNN in June that Mitchell was initially planning to act as their getaway driver, but got cold feet at the last minute.

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Mitchell sobbed in court Tuesday while pleading guilty to charges of&nbsp;first-degree promoting prison contraband, a felony, and misdemeanor fourth-degree criminal facilitation, the AP reports. She faces a sentence of up to seven years in prison.&nbsp;

]]>Judge Did Not Have Louisiana Gunman Involuntarily Committed To Mental Hospital, She Says55b6a03de4b0a13f9d19be1f2015-07-27T17:18:53-04:002015-07-27T18:59:01-04:00Hilary Hansonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-hanson/

Multiple outlets reported last week that John Russell Houser -- who fatally shot two people and injured nine at a Louisiana movie theater Thursday -- was involuntarily committed to a Georgia mental hospital in 2008, raising questions about how he was later able to&nbsp;legally purchase a gun.

For the Georgia judge who reportedly made the order, the answer is simple: She never had Houser committed.

The Associated Press reported Saturday&nbsp;that after threatening altercations with his family, Houser was involuntarily committed to the West Central Regional Hospital by authorization of Carroll County Probate Judge Betty Cason. The AP updated its story Monday evening to reflect Cason's claims to the contrary.

As per the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, people who have been &ldquo;committed&rdquo; to a mental hospital involuntarily are prohibited from purchasing a firearm.&nbsp;In Georgia, court officials are supposed to report the committal to a state database that funnels the information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a federal database used for background checks on firearm buyers.&nbsp;

That means that if Houser had been involuntarily committed, the information should have popped up when he purchased a gun from an Alabama pawn shop in 2014, but it apparently did not.

Cason said in an email to The Huffington Post that her court never authorized Houser to be involuntarily committed. She called reports to the contrary a &ldquo;misquote&rdquo; on the part of the Houser family attorney.&nbsp;She said the attorney filed a petition seeking a protective order and falsely characterized the order Cason gave.

What Cason actually signed was an &ldquo;order to apprehend,&rdquo; The Washington Post reported. That meant that Houser was taken to West Central Regional Hospital in Columbus, Georgia, for evaluation by doctors. The evaluation could have ended one of three ways: doctors releasing him, Houser opting to stay at the hospital voluntarily, or doctors filing a petition to have him involuntarily committed.

Muscogee County Probate Judge Marc E. D&rsquo;Antonio, who was county clerk in 2008, told HuffPost that since West Central Regional Hospital is located in Muscogee County, any order to have Houser involuntarily committed would have been filed there, not in Carroll County.

&ldquo;It would have been filed in my court,&rdquo; D&rsquo;Antonio said. &ldquo;And if there had been adjudication [to have Houser committed], I would have reported it [to the state].&rdquo;

D&rsquo;Antonio said that he believes it's important to clarify the distinction and that a person should not immediately have his or her rights taken away for spending time in a mental hospital. He added that he was frustrated by the public&rsquo;s tendency to equate mental illness with violence and danger.

&ldquo;Most mentally ill people are not more violent than anybody else on the street,&rdquo; he said.

Australia&rsquo;s &ldquo;war on cats&rdquo; has met a new foe -- French former screen siren-turned-animal welfare activist&nbsp;Brigitte Bardot.

Bardot condemned the country&rsquo;s plans to exterminate 2 million feral cats, which environmental officials say threaten Australia&rsquo;s endangered small mammals and birds. She called the plan &ldquo;inhumane and ridiculous&rdquo; in an open letter&nbsp;to Environment Minister Greg Hunt, published last week.

&ldquo;The 6 million dollars you plan to spend in destroying these animals would be much better spent in setting up a large-scale sterilization campaign,&rdquo; she wrote.

Hunt announced the five-year anti-feral cat campaign&nbsp;at a Melbourne zoo on July 16, according to The Guardian. The strategy is to poison, trap or shoot some 2 million feral cats. Hunt said the effort would &ldquo;halt and reverse the threats to our magnificent endemic species.&rdquo;

Cats were introduced to the continent around 200 years ago, and the feral feline population has since exploded. "Feral" cats, which live on their own and are not socialized to interact with people, are notably different from&nbsp;"stray" cats, which are socialized and simply lack homes. Stray cats can be re-homed with humans, while feral cats typically cannot.

Feline welfare aside, there&rsquo;s some evidence to suggest that the program just won&rsquo;t work.

When members of an animal population are killed off, the animals missed by the cull tend to reproduce at a higher rate to restore the population, according to Alley Cat Allies, a U.S. feral cat advocacy group. Additionally, in a phenomenon known as the &ldquo;vacuum effect,&rdquo; neighboring populations expand and move into the newly vacant habitat.

However, if the animals are spayed or neutered and returned to their original area, there is no immediate vacancy. The population is stabilized, and the neutered cats will eventually die off. Alley Cat Allies cites two studies&nbsp;that suggest this method -- known as Trap-Neuter-Return -- causes feral cat populations to decrease over time.

Even Kelly O&rsquo;Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, who called the planned cat cull &ldquo;commendable,&rdquo; criticized the program for not addressing an even bigger threat to endangered species -- habitat loss.

&ldquo;The strategy &hellip; fails to meaningfully address the biggest threat to threatened species and ecological communities -- the loss and fragmentation of habitat -- either through investment in new protected areas or by safeguarding existing critical places,&rdquo;&nbsp;she told The Guardian.

Though the bulk of the plan&rsquo;s $6.6 million will be spent on culling cats, the budget does include efforts to &ldquo;revegetate&rdquo; habitats for endangered species. However, such habitats will not be off-limits to development, according to The Guardian.

It's unclear how many feral cats currently roam Australia.&nbsp;Hunt estimated in November that the country was home to "up to 20 million feral cats taking up to four native Australian animals a night," resulting in 20 billion deaths of birds and small mammals each year. However, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation called those figures into question, quoting scientists as saying there could be anywhere from 5 million to 18 million cats.&nbsp;